Amanda Matta, 28, is eagerly anticipating the king’s coronation. The TikToker, known as “matta_of_fact” posted her first video on the topic in December last year, and has “lots more coverage, explainers and analysis” coming up for her channel.
Matta has 1.2 million subscribers, an enviable audience for even established media outlets, and has become an influential voice on the app when it comes to the royals.
The full-time social media manager is based in Pennsylvania, in the US, but has been at the forefront of TikTok coronation coverage, sharing videos such as “press reactions to Meghan not attending the coronation”, “coronation 101: the king’s procession” and news updates like “Prince Harry will attend the coronation without Meghan.”
This is the first-ever coronation on TikTok, and videos on the topic are booming, highlighting an appetite for updates and insightful analysis about the British monarchy among young people. The hashtag “Prince Charles” has 3.8bn views on TikTok, while “coronation” has 350.3m.
“There’s potential for the younger generation (Gen Z) to get really engaged with the royal family for potentially the first time here – being able to witness the pomp and pageantry where the monarchy shines for the first time,” says Matta.
“Of course, that’s a double-edged sword, as people, particularly millennials and Gen Zers, are more willing to call out anything that they view as out of touch.”
Matta posted her first royals video in March 2021, the day after Harry and Meghan’s primetime interview with Oprah was broadcast, and has shared daily videos on the monarchy ever since. Many of her videos routinely hit or get close to a million views.
She believes her audience’s interest in the coronation is not as simple as young people love the monarchy.
“Many of my viewers feel the same way as I do: we’re eager to witness the coronation for its historical significance,” she says. “I can’t say that many of us are tuning in because of who is being crowned.”
This is a huge difference to how enthralled the public would have been in 1953 for a young Queen Elizabeth II, she says.
TikToker Charlie Richardson, 20, known as notaroyalexpert, feels similarly and says his interest stems from the fact we have not witnessed a coronation in 70 years. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime historical display that will be fascinating to watch.”
He argues this coronation is unique not just because it’s the first TikTok coronation, but also because it is the first in the age of social media.
“This sort of major royal event would have been very private and exclusive in the past, but now it will be more accessible than ever – even more so than Queen Elizabeth’s coronation when it was the first to be televised.”
But not every TikToker has found coronation content popular with their audience. Rosie Hart, 21, is a fashion historian (@theroyalwardrobe) and often talks about the monarchy in her videos.
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“I’ve noticed a real divide in how people have responded to my coronation content, and a lot of this comes down to age,” she says.
On Instagram, where her audience are older on average, the response to coronation content has been “more fascination and excitement”. On TikTok, where she has 416,000 followers, most of whom are 16-25, “the response has been far more critical, ranging from confusion to anger”.
It appears that younger audiences, while interested in issues to do with the royals and the coronation, are also more likely to be critical of them.
Isabel Diaz, or @isadiazosorio on TikTok, has 51,000 followers, and has always been fascinated with the royal family, she says, so creating a channel dedicated to them in early-2022 felt right. Originally from Spain, she moved to London to study but has kept up her TikTok channel religiously as well.
She is “really looking forward to the day”, she says, adding that the coronation weekend would be “like a full-time job for me to cover all the possible news about the coronation”and that she is very proud of her role as a royals broadcaster on TikTok.
Any social media creators “who immortalise this moment, will have a lifelong credit as independent reporters of the first coronation of England transmitted through social media”, she says.